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From Today's Louisville Courier Journal
Blaine Van Gansbeke is serious about the Kentucky Derby.
As a freshman at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1998, he walked 2 miles to find a television to watch it. Two years ago, while stationed in Iraq, he got a sudden bout of homesickness, being away on the first Saturday in May. It was "sort of like missing Christmas," he said.
But even though he is again stationed in Iraq this year, Capt. Van Gansbeke, 26, has arranged a leave next week -- and will have one of the best seats at Churchill Downs on Derby Day.
Terry Finley, a retired Army Ranger who owns West Point Thoroughbreds, a horse-syndicate business based in New Jersey, is taking Van Gansbeke and his wife, Bridget, to the Derby as his guests. They will sit with him and his wife, Debbie, in the Silks Lounge.
But Finley's Derby guest list numbers far more: He has arranged for 400 soldiers from Fort Campbell -- who later this year will be redeployed to Iraq -- to have free admission to the Derby infield, along with box lunches, drink coupons and $25 in betting vouchers.
The tab is being covered by a fund that Finley set up to thank soldiers serving in Iraq. The Thoroughbred Thank You Fund started small, with him asking friends to donate money to help buy tickets to send several soldiers to Derby.
Then, money began pouring in as word got out -- $10 and $20 bills tucked inside cards and letters from across the nation and the world, aided by advertisements in The Blood-Horse magazine and Thoroughbred Times.
A group of farm managers in Florida collected nearly $10,000.
The fund eventually grew to about $45,000 -- more than enough to cover this year's trip and have money left over for next year.
Fort Campbell chose the soldiers -- a group from the 101st Airborne Division who will be deployed to Iraq later this year. They will arrive by bus Saturday morning and return to base later that night.
Although they won't be wearing uniforms, they should be easy to spot, since they'll be wearing hats donated at cost by horsehats.com, based in Lexington.
Sgt. Soraya Bacchus said yesterday that she's eager to get here. A native of South America, Bacchus has been in the service for more than three years and has never been to a horse race.
"I've never experienced anything like that," she said, adding that it's especially nice that everything is paid for. "I'm excited."
Ten of the soldiers chosen by Fort Campbell will carry the Garland of Roses from the grandstand, across the loam and sand track to the Winner's Circle.
Van Gansbeke's special treatment comes after he struck up an Internet friendship with Finley. He had written to Courier-Journal racing writer Jennie Rees to ask how he could get a ticket to Derby, and Rees referred him to Finley and the Thoroughbred Thank You Fund.
Through their e-mail messages, Finley and Van Gansbeke realized that they had much in common -- both are West Point alums and serious racing fans. So Finley gave Van Gansbeke a Derby he won't forget.
"Being at home on Derby Day means a lot to me," Van Gansbeke, son of Annelle and Larry Van Gansbeke of Louisville, said in an e-mail message from Baghdad earlier this week. "It is something unique to the city. If you haven't grown up in Louisville, or experienced a few Derby Weeks, then you don't understand."
Finley said he hopes to keep the Thoroughbred Thank You Fund going, with Derby invitations every year.
"I'm hoping we get some soldiers who start to develop into fans of the racing business," said Finley, whose thoroughbreds race in black and gold, the colors of Army.
Finley said he was born and raised outside Philadelphia; his father was a schoolteacher who loved horse racing.
"We would always go to the racetrack together," Finley said earlier this week by cell phone from a horse sale in Ocala, Fla.
He graduated from West Point in 1986 and served in the Army for eight years. In 1991, he began syndicating horses -- getting people to buy "shares" of a thoroughbred.
His first horse was a $5,000 claimer from Philadelphia Park named Sunbelt. That gelding soon took Finley to the winner's circle -- and since then, West Point has syndicated about 110 horses, worth more than $13 million, and drawn more than 150 partners into the business.
"I like that there's no politics involved. It doesn't matter who you parents are, how big your house is, how big your bank account is," he said of the thoroughbred business. "If you've got the fastest horse, you're the star."
Finley's main office is in Mount Laurel, N.J., but his horses are stabled in various places, including at Churchill Downs and Keeneland in Lexington, Ky. None of them are running on Derby weekend.
Van Gansbeke's wife, Bridget Bell-Van Gansbeke, a graduate of Assumption High School, said she's not a huge racing fan but is excited about seeing her husband and sitting in prime seats for Derby because, "usually, I'm in the infield."
"I enjoy going to the track, but I don't have to go every week to get my fix like he does," she said this week from the couple's home in Columbus, Ga.
Blaine Van Gansbeke is expected to arrive in Louisville early next week, assuming his flights from Iraq are on schedule. And when they head to the track Saturday, Bridget will have a surprise for her husband.
"I'm going to give him a little more betting allowance" than normal, she said, laughing.
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Gourmet Catering & Septic Tank Cleaning
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